Young Consumers Do Not Like Repetitive Adverts, A Study Shows

Repetitive ads no longer help in brand recall; a study found out.

In 2017, the analytics company Nielsen revealed that the general public in Australia begins to respond to a campaign when optimally exposed to digital advertising about 5-9 times. Similarly, Schmidt and Eisend (2015) show that increased exposure to brand advertising can lead to a lift in brand awareness. So naturally, this should be the standard course for most types of advertising, no?

Apparently not, since the majority of millennials (25-to-34-year-olds) and Gen Z (16-to-24-year-olds) are starting to dislike this advertising trend.

VidMob, a technology platform, recently uncovered in a survey that out of every four millennials and Gen Z individuals, only one would claim to remember an advertisement presented to them multiple times. According to this study, 44 per cent of Gen Z is displeased when bombarded with overly repetitive adverts. For millennials, 34 per cent eventually stop paying attention altogether. These results suggest that in conclusion, traditional means of advertisement personalisation to appeal to the Gen Z and millennial population have grown stale.

So how exactly can advertisers draw the attention of these generations if redundant brands no longer work on them? For this, VideoMob noted a few trends:

In the study featuring 1000 Gen Z and 1000 millennials, it is found out that adverts with similar tastes as young adults’ (55 per cent) are more likely to be responded to compared to adverts featuring a celebrity (45 per cent).
Across both groups, 42 per cent spend more time on social media compared to last year, with 70 per cent of Gen Z frequenting Stories on Snapchat and Instagram.
Visually beautiful adverts entice 41 per cent of Gen Z and 32 per cent of millennials.
Half of the millennials prefer shorter videos, while the Gen Z are mostly interested in better music.
Gen Z primarily favours humorous videos (56 per cent) over celebrity-focused videos (17 per cent).

To put it in a nutshell, adverts with style are most likeable for young consumers. Rather than brands that repetitively show in their social media feeds, they very much prefer stylish advertisements that resonate with a reflection of themselves or their aspirational selves. This preference bears a weighty implication to marketers, as connecting with the youth implies having to ditch traditional methods and instead focus on applying a fresh, more complex approach in the field of digital advertising for the young populace.

But that is precisely what digital marketing is, right? Never ending, always evolving.

References:

https://www.vidmob.com/state-of-social-video/

http://www.nielsen.com/au/en/insights/news/2017/how-frequency-of-exposure-can-maximise-the-resonance-of-your-digital-campaigns.html

Schmidt, S., & Eisend, M. (2015). Advertising Repetition: A Meta-Analysis on Effective Frequency in Advertising. Journal Of Advertising, 44(4), 415-428.